September 13, 2017Tyler Collins
Dealing With Emotions During Recovery
Emotions, especially strong and unpleasant ones like grief, guilt, shame, and anger, are difficult to deal with for most of us. For a person in recovery, it can be even harder to cope with emotions of any kind.
While there are numerous reasons and motivations behind addiction, many people with alcohol problems use it to self-medicate. This means that when you feel sad or angry or stressed, you’re more likely to turn to alcohol to lessen it or make it go away. The alcohol becomes a coping mechanism. Over time, as your substance use gets worse, you forget how to cope without it, which can make dealing with emotions after recovery extremely difficult.
Emotions in Early Recovery
It’s important to keep in mind that you will likely experience what is known as an ’emotional rollercoaster’ in the first few weeks or months of recovery. Here, your body is withdrawing from alcohol, your brain is adjusting to not having alcohol in the system, and your emotions will go up and down. You will likely experience strong mood swings, anxiety, panic, depression, and other negative emotions. Your brain undergoes changes when you frequently drink alcohol, and as you detox, the chemicals in your brain will return to normal.
You will likely also have more difficulty processing and dealing with these emotions. Why? Your brain is likely accustomed to being able to shut down, to forget about panic, and to having a higher level of stimulation in the dopamine and gabba receptors. Without this, you’re left to cope with stressful situations on your own, and if you don’t have coping mechanisms, it will get worse and worse.
If you attended a good rehabilitation facility, you will receive counseling and cognitive behavioral or other therapy to help you learn to cope.
Dealing with Emotions When You Are Sober
After you leave recovery or detox on your own, you will typically find that you still need to deal with emotions and their consequences. If you’ve spent a long time using alcohol, especially to cope, you will need time and coping methods to deal with emotions again. The first thing to remember is that emotions are normal, everyone has them, and you will feel them at various levels of intensity. You don’t have to stop them, drown them out, or make them go away. You also don’t have to be happy all the time. Humans experience a full range of emotions and sometimes stress, sadness, and anger do happen. They won’t ever go away, but you can learn to deal with them in better ways.
Take Up Mindfulness
Mindfulness, which includes meditation, often seems like a waste of time to those first getting started, but it is a scientifically proven way to reduce stress and get your mind off thinking about emotions. Mindfulness is a practice that involves training your focus onto what you are doing or onto specific things, which causes you to stress less, causes you to pay less attention to problems, and allows you to pay attention to other things, rather than letting emotions overwhelm you. While you won’t see benefits right away, practicing regularly will help. In fact, mindfulness and mindfulness based stress reduction are also used to improve recovery to help people stay sober by reducing overall stress.
Exercise
Exercise Exercise helps to balance chemicals in the brain, creating rewarding dopamine and serotonin, depleting your energy, and helping you to de-stress and feel happy. While very few of us think of exercise as rewarding, done in the right amounts, it can be. In most cases, the trick is to start out slow, don’t exhaust yourself, and find something that you enjoy. Choosing mindfulness based exercises like yoga or tai chi can help you to improve mindfulness, while other activities like swimming, cycling, dancing, etc., are often more accessible. If you choose to start an exercise routine, consult with your doctor, make sure that your body is up for it, and start off slow.
Get Enough Sleep
While you might not think that sleep plays a large role in managing emotions, it does. If you are low on sleep you’re more likely to be stressed, irritable, anxious, and even angry. Getting more sleep boosts your mood, ensures that you’re ready for the day, and balances out the chemicals in your brain so that you’re more able to process new emotions. However, your goal should be to create a regular sleep schedule, where you go to bed and wake up at the same time every day, get about the same amount of sleep every day, and create a regular schedule for yourself.
Discuss Your Problems
Discussing your problems and emotions can be an extremely helpful way to give them a place which can help you to process them. For example, you can talk to your friends and family, discuss things you are upset about, and learn how to handle things you are stressed about quickly. Discussing stress with people causing that stress can also benefit you in other ways because it creates quick problem resolution and improves your relationship.
If you’re stressed or upset about things that you cannot discuss with friends or family or don’t have relationships that would allow you to do so openly, 12-Step and other support groups can help. A 12-Step group will give you a place to vent, to discuss cravings and emotions with people who have gone through similar things, and to have an outlet even when friends and family won’t understand.
If you need a more private place to share, a journal or diary can provide a similar, although less satisfying outlet.
Distraction Works
Emotions seem to get stronger when you focus on them. By paying attention to other things, doing other things, and keeping yourself occupied, you can reduce their impact. By keeping yourself busy, doing something you like, and involving yourself in social activities, hobbies, and games, you can learn to cope with emotions by paying less attention to them.
However, you shouldn’t try to spend every second doing something. If you went to rehab, you probably know the acronym H.A.L.T. (Hungry, Angry, Lonely, Tired), which stands for emotions where you are most likely to relapse. If you overwork yourself, isolate yourself, or don’t resolve anger, you could put yourself into a situation where you are more likely to try to use alcohol to cope.
Get Help
If you haven’t been to rehab, you probably missed a lot in terms of life-building skills including coping mechanisms. A quality rehabilitation center will offer a full range of treatment options including cognitive behavioral therapy which will help you build skills to cope with emotions. While you may no longer need rehab, you should still consider seeking out a counselor or a therapist to help you with the areas you are struggling in. For example, if you quit drinking but haven’t addressed the cause of that addiction, you might find yourself eventually relapsing.
Dealing with emotions can be difficult for anyone, but while you are in recovery, they can be overwhelming. Getting treatment, therapy, and developing coping skills can help you to manage emotions and stress, so you can live normally and enjoy your life without having to drink.
If you or someone you love is struggling with alcoholism or drug addiction, or you just have questions, please call Lighthouse Treatment Center today. We are happy to provide a no-cost, no-obligation consultation with one of our experienced treatment advisors. Help is available today.
